New Takes on Classic Magic Items

Powerful Staff

Through long tradition, the warrior-magi of Kalent do not use the spellbooks common to wizardly students of other lands. Instead, they carve their magical glyphs into the wood of their walking sticks & staves. Staves are common equipment for the elderly, lame, shepherds, and travellers. Such staves are often decorated with carvings, or with things tied to them, but only the Powerful Staves held by the Kalenti warrior-magi are bound with powerful magics.

Traditionally made from dark wood, the Powerful Staff may be straight or twisted, and the core stick is chosen as much for its artistic merits as its strength. Small protrusions are typically left uncut, so that fetishes, medicine bags, sacred feathers, or mystic weavings can be more easily tied to it.

Smooth patches--natural or sanded--are used for the mage's carvings. Some of these are magical in nature. In fact, most of these hold some hidden power. These carvings can include runic spells that imbue the magic of the staff, Some of them are Talisman Memory Marks, encoding important events and memories personal to the mage. The bulk of these mystic glyphs however, are the mage's spells. In these twisting and winding carvings is the sum total of the personal knowledge of spellcraft of the owning mage.

Though the primary function of the Powerful Staff is as a mnemonic reminder & pseudo-spellbook, the staff is also used for defence. The Kalent warrior-magi are well-versed in the art of stick-fighting, and employ sorcerous augmentations to that art. The staff is enchanted to be light and fast, yet strong and unyielding. This imparts greater skill at blocking blows or delivering them. In addition, the Powerful Staff can strike ghostly or immaterial opponents. In this capacity, even a non-magic owner of one of these staves can find employment as a hunter of Demons, ghosts, or witches.

To ease the burden of spellcasting, many--perhaps most--warrior-magi inscribe spells into their staves in a form that allows ready delivery. With only a few words, a finger gracefully tracing one of the many symbols, and a quick thrust of the staff, the contained magics are brought forth. These magics may be used to curse, to slay, to trap, or to trick. Nearly any spell known by the warrior-mage can be encoded as a mystic enhancement of the staff's power. Anyone that is taught the proper name of that glyph--or can decode it through their own sorcerous talents--can use these embedded spells.

All of these functions are useful, and any one of them would make the Powerful Staves great and powerful artefacts. But there is more. As the staff has power over the unseen Entities, these can be beaten into submission and forced to serve inside the staff itself. This greatly enhances the mage's power, and adds to the fear and respect due them. Whether (somewhat) willing or trapped and enslaved, the imprisoned Entity's power may be used at a whim by the wielder.

As a last act of defiance, a mage who has been all but beaten by an opponent may use the imprisoned Entity for one final strike. This explosive blast uses up all of the enchantments to the staff, all of the encoded spells, all of the Entity's might, every last talisman tied to the staff, everything that is the sum total of the warrior-magi's art is destructively released at once. All this magic is released by breaking the staff over the knee. The Entity helps overcome the normal strengthening magics, preferring oblivion over servitude or defeat. The mage, indeed everything nearby, is destroyed in the blast. Even the greatest Demon is not immune. The only thing that remains from the final strike is a smoking crater, its glow dimming rapidly, fading into memory.